The Deltona massacre (commonly referred to as the "Xbox Murders") was a residential murder which occurred on August 6, 2004, at a home on Telford Lane in Deltona, Florida, United States. Four men broke into the home and bludgeoned six victims to death. The four attackers, apparently inspired by the movie Wonderland, tortured and killed four men, two women, and a dog inside the home, making it the bloodiest mass murder in Volusia County history. Their motive was revenge on Erin Belanger, who evicted one of the attackers from her grandmother's house, and the recovery of belongings including an Xbox.
A jury found Troy Victorino, Robert Cannon, Jerone Hunter, and Michael Salas guilty of the massacre in August 2006. 7th Circuit Judge William A. Parsons upheld the jury's death penalty recommendation and called the killings "conscienceless" and "unnecessarily torturous." He told each of the men during back-to-back sentencing hearings, "You have not only forfeited your right to live among us, you have forfeited your right to live at all." The attackers had also intended to kill another person who happened not to be at the house.
Read more about Deltona Massacre: Events Precipitating The Attack, The Attack, Trial and Sentencing, Victims, Murderers, Legislative Response
Famous quotes containing the word massacre:
“The bourgeoisie of the whole world, which looks complacently upon the wholesale massacre after the battle, is convulsed by horror at the desecration of brick and mortar.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)